Texan wanted to make art films but found himself typecast as a gore monger

Growing up in Texas, Tobe Hooper watched a movie or two almost every day. “I always figured I would be there one day making movies,” he told the Los Angeles Times in 1990. “That’s all I thought about.”

His first feature film—“Eggshells,” about a hippie commune—bombed. By his late 20s, he was still struggling to establish himself as a movie director.